Google and Facebook lose $100m after falling for scam

Experts say the revelation highlights how sophisticated versions of classic scams are being used to fool major organisationsJason Lee/Reuters

Even the world’s biggest technology companies succumb to simple email scams, it has emerged, after Google and Facebook admitted to transferring $100 million to a Lithuanian hacker who sent them phoney invoices.

In March the US Justice Department announced the arrest of a man who had swindled the money from two unnamed technology giants by impersonating an Asian company that supplied both businesses.

An investigation by Fortune published yesterday named Facebook and Google as the victims. It said that the supplier impersonated was Quanta, a Taiwan-based maker of hardware.

Security experts said that the revelation highlighted how sophisticated versions of classic scams were being used to fool major organisations. Russian-backed hackers used similar impersonation tactics to hack the Democratic National Committee last year.